Jaipur/Islamabad: Uncertainty continued over the NSA-level talks between India and Pakistan as New Delhi said on Friday it wanted the parleys to be held but was awaiting Islamabad’s response to its advisory asking Pakistani NSA Sartaj Aziz not to meet Kashmiri separatists.
Advertisement
“Cancellation (of the talks) is yet to be confirmed from either side”.
India, in a draft agenda with Pakistan on August 18, had made terrorism the sole item for the meet between Aziz and Indian NSA Ajit Doval. “I am ready to come to India“.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday said that every interaction with the Government of Pakistan can not be identified as a dialogue. Aziz went on to say, “A major theme being played up in Indian media is that Pakistan is apprehensive of dossiers being prepared by Mr Doval”. India sees the invitation to the Hurriyat leaders as the defiant attitude of Pakistan and a provocation to call off the talks.
“New Delhi will never get the permanent seat of UN Security Council unless it recognizes the resolutions passed by the World Body about Kashmir dispute and implements them in letter and spirit”, he added”.
Previous year India cancelled foreign secretary-level talks between the two countries after a similar meeting.
The Spokesman said it is not Pakistan that has placed any condition for the talks.
He refused to share the contents of the dossiers about alleged Indian interference in Pakistan but displayed it to the media. “NSA-level talks must be saved from its expected death”, said Aurangzeb Khan, an analyst.
He said if India did not allow the Kashmiris to attend the reception, it would become clearer to the world that it was usurping the Kashmiris’ rights.
“There is no basis for talks unless there is an assurance that Pakistani establishment will honour the commitments”, he said, adding that the chain of incidents unfolding now make it clear that whatever happened in the Russian city of Ufa “did not have the support of the entire Pakistani establishment”.
“For India to refuse to engage in talks with Pakistan on this pretext, is a repeat of what it did when it cancelled the Foreign Secretary level talks that were scheduled to be held on 25 August past year, pursuant to the meeting between the two Prime Ministers in Delhi in May 2014″, he said. “That is the core issue”, he said.
“Pakistan took 22 days to respond to the Indian proposal to meet in New Delhi“.
The arrest was made soon after Shah landed at Delhi airport from Srinagar for a proposed meeting with Pak NSA Sartaj Aziz.
“We should be willing to place the Hurriyat leaders under house arrest and then let Pakistan take a call on whether it wants to talk with us”, the former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, G. Parthasarathy, had told this paper earlier this week.
To a question about MQM, he said raids in Karachi were against criminals and not against any political party or leadership as politics and crimes were two different things.
He said India was making its own interpretations of the Ufa understanding.
Advertisement
Ever since Modi and Sharif met at Ufa, tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated due to intermittent firing and shelling by the Pakistani military along the Jammu and Kashmir border.
